The Sav­iors Were Real

It is unwar­rantably assumed by Chris­t­ian writ­ers that the incar­nat­ed Gods and cru­ci­fied Sav­iors of the pagan reli­gions were all either mere fab­u­lous char­ac­ters, or ordi­nary human beings invest­ed with divine titles, and divine attrib­ut­es ; while, on the oth­er hand, the assump­tion is put forth with equal bold­ness that Jesus Christ was a real divine per­son­age, seen and believed on in the world, and final­ly cru­ci­fied on Mount Calvary.”

But we do not find the facts in his­to­ry to war­rant any such assump­tions or any such dis­tinc­tions. They all stand in these respects upon the same ground and on equal footing.

And their respec­tive dis­ci­ples point to the same kind of evi­dence to prove their real exis­tence and their divine char­ac­ter, and to prove that they once walked and talked amongst men, as well as now sit on the eter­nal throne in heav­en at the right hand of the father.” And we find even Chris­t­ian writ­ers admit­ting the once bona fide or per­son­al exis­tence on earth of most of the pagan Sav­iors.Kersey Graves, The World’s Six­teen Cru­ci­fied Sav­iors, Chap­ter 15, The Sav­iors Were Real Personages”

As to the two chief incar­nat­ed Gods of India — Chrish­na and Sakia — there is scarce­ly a peg left to hang a doubt upon” as to the fact of their hav­ing descend­ed to the earth, tak­en upon them­selves the form of men, and hav­ing been wor­shiped as ver­i­ta­ble Gods.

Indeed, we believe but few of the mis­sion­ar­ies who have vis­it­ed that coun­try ques­tion the state­ment and gen­er­al belief preva­lent there of their once per­son­al real­i­ty. Col. Todd, in his His­to­ry of the Rajahs (p. 44), says :

We must dis­card the idea that the Mahabaret, the his­to­ry of Rama, of Chrish­na, and the five Pad­ua broth­ers are mere alle­gories ; colos­sal fig­ures, ancient tem­ples, and caves inscribed with char­ac­ters yet unknown, con­firm the real­i­ty, and their race, their cities, and their coins yet exist.” 

To argue fur­ther the per­son­al real­i­ty of this cru­ci­fied God would be a waste of words, as it is gen­er­al­ly admit­ted, both by his­tor­i­cal writ­ers and missionaries.

Mr. Hig­gins declares, Chrish­na lived at the con­clu­sion of the brazen age, which is cal­cu­lat­ed to have been eleven hun­dred or twelve hun­dred years before Christ.” Here is a very pos­i­tive and spe­cif­ic dec­la­ra­tion as to his tan­gi­ble actu­al­i­ty. Col. Dow, Mr, Robin­son, and oth­ers use sim­i­lar language.

Rel­a­tive to Bac­chus, of whose his­to­ry many writ­ers have spo­ken as being whol­ly fab­u­lous or fic­ti­tious, Diodor­us Sicu­lus says (lib. iii. p. 137), the Libyans claim Bac­chus, and say that he was the son of Ammon, a king of Libya ; that he built a tem­ple to his father, Amraon.” And that world-wide famous his­to­ri­an (Mr. Goodrich) is still more explic­it, if pos­si­ble, as to his mate­r­i­al enti­ty. After giv­ing it direct­ly as his opin­ion that there was such a being, he says, He plant­ed vine-yards and fig-trees, and erect­ed many noble cities.” He more­over tells us, His skill in leg­is­la­tion and agri­cul­ture is much praised” (p. 499).

With respect to Osiris of Egypt, anoth­er God-Sav­ior, Mr. Hit­tle declares unqual­i­fied­ly that Herodotus saw the tomb of Osiris, at Sais near­ly five cen­turies before Christ” (vol. i.p. 246). Rather a strong evi­dence of his pre­vi­ous per­son­al­i­ty cer­tain­ly, but not more so than that fur­nished by the New York, Jour­nal of Com­merce a few years since, rel­a­tive to the Egypt­ian Apis or Thulis, whose theo­phany was annu­al­ly cel­e­brat­ed, at the ris­ing of the Nile, with great fes­tiv­i­ties and devo­tion, sev­er­al thou­sand years ago. The Paris cor­re­spon­dent of that jour­nal, after speak­ing of Mr. Auguste Mari­et­ta’s trav­els, a dis­tin­guished sci­en­tif­ic gen­tle­man who for four years past had been employed by the French Gov­ern­ment in mak­ing Egypt­ian research­es,” hav­ing returned home, says, The most impor­tant of Mr. Mari­et­ta’s dis­cov­er­ies was the tomb of Apis (Thulis), a mon­u­ment exca­vat­ed entire­ly in lime-rock. There are (he says in con­clu­sion) epi­taphs, form­ing a chrono­log­i­cal record of each of the Apis buried in the com­mon tomb. The sculp­ture is of the date of the Pyra­mids, and the stat­ues are in the best state of preser­va­tion ; the col­ors are per­fect­ly bright. The exe­cu­tion is admirable, and they con­vey an exact idea of the phys­i­cal char­ac­ter of the prim­i­tive population.”

The New Amer­i­can Cyclo­pe­dia (art. Apis) in speak­ing of this Egypt­ian God, tells us his life­time was twen­ty-five years ; in har­mo­ny with one of the the­o­log­ics-astro­nom­i­cal cycles of the Egyp­tians. The same work and vol­ume (p. 132), in speak­ing of the real exis­tence of Ado­nis of Greece, tells us, upon the author­i­ty of the poet Panya­sis, that he was a ver­i­ta­ble son of Theias, king of Syria.

But of all the char­ac­ters who fig­ured in the mytho­log­i­cal works or law­less rhap­sodies of the ancients, and wor­shiped by them as cru­ci­fied Gods and sin-aton­ing Sav­iors, none has, per­haps, been so indu­bitably, so pos­i­tive­ly, and so uni­ver­sal­ly set down as mytho­log­i­cal or fab­u­lous as that of Prometheus of Caucasus.

And yet Mr. Lem­priere, D.D., tells us in his Clas­si­cal Dic­tio­nary that he was the son of Jape­tus. Sir Isaac New­ton say he was a descen­dant of the famous African Sesostris ; while that eru­dite and mas­ter­ly his­to­ri­an (Mr. Hig­gins) seems to have enter­tained no doubt of his per­son­al esse ; nor, indeed, of many, if any, of the pagan Sav­iors, as the fol­low­ing dec­la­ra­tion will show. He says,

Find­ing men in India and oth­er coun­tries of the same name of the infe­ri­or Gods (as it is quite com­mon to name men for them) has led some to con­clude that those dei­fied men nev­er exist­ed, but are mere­ly mytho­log­i­cal names of the sun. True, the first supreme God of every nation (not except­ing the Jews) was the sun. But more mod­ern­ly the names were trans­ferred to men.” 

Again, he says,

Inas­much as some of them are found to have been real bona fide human beings, there is noth­ing unrea­son­able in con­clud­ing that all were.” 

And if we take into con­sid­er­a­tion the true and indis­putable fact that the priests had every­thing at their dis­pos­al, and the strongest motives for con­ceal­ing and sup­press­ing, not to say gar­bling and destroy­ing evi­dence, it is not to be won­dered at that the his­to­ries of some of these Gods should be some­what obscure and ambigu­ous. Fur­ther on he declares,

In every case the Sav­ior was incar­nate, and in near­ly every case the place in which he was actu­al­ly born was exhib­it­ed to the people.” 

And upon the author­i­ty of the Hiero­phant, we will add, the mem­o­ries of many of them have been con­se­crat­ed and per­pet­u­at­ed by tombs placed beside their tem­ples, which is per­haps the most con­vinc­ing species of evi­dence that could be offered.

The evi­dence, then, is pre­cise­ly of the same char­ac­ter as that offered in the case of Jesus Christ to prove that the pagan Sav­iors did real­ly pos­sess a sub­stan­tial, earth­ly and bod­i­ly exis­tence. Though it is true that it nev­er has been uni­ver­sal­ly con­ced­ed or believed by Chris­t­ian them­selves that Jesus Christ ever had a per­son­al or cor­po­re­al exis­tence on earth.

Cotile­nius, in a note on Ignatius, Epis­tle to the Tral­lians, writ­ten in the third cen­tu­ry of the Chris­t­ian era, declares that it is as absurd to deny the doc­trine which taught that Jesus Christ’s body was a phan­tom as to deny that the sun shone at mid­day.” His phys­i­cal body of course was meant, for it appears he believed in his eter­nal exis­tence as a spir­it in heaven.

And we find whole sects advo­cat­ing sim­i­lar views in the ear­ly ages of the Chris­t­ian church. One of the most prim­i­tive and learned sects,” says a writer, were the Manicheans, who denied that Jesus Christ ever exist­ed in flesh and blood, but believed him to be a God in spir­it only ; oth­ers denied him to be a God, but believed him to have been a prophet, or inspired char­ac­ter, like the Uni­tar­i­ans of the present day. Some denied his cru­ci­fix­ion, oth­ers assert­ed it.

It is more than prob­a­ble that this was the cause of dis­pute between Paul and Barn­abas, men­tioned in the Acts of the Apos­tles, see­ing that Paul had laid such pecu­liar empha­sis on Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

And this con­clu­sion is cor­rob­o­rat­ed by its being express­ly stat­ed in the Gospel of Barn­abas that Jesus Christ was not cru­ci­fied, but was car­ried to heav­en by four angels.” There was a long list,” says the same writer, from the ear­li­est times, of sin­cere Chris­tians who denied that Jesus Christ rose from the dead;” while, as we may remark here, there could not have been at that ear­ly date any grounds for deny­ing these things, had he real­ly fig­ured in the world in the mirac­u­lous and extra­or­di­nary and pub­lic man­ner as that relat­ed in the Gospels. The Saviors Were Real 1Endmark


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  1. rob Avatar
    rob

    A CULT OF PARALLELS :
    PAGAN MYTHS AND THE JESUS STORY

    http://pages.ca.inter.net/~oblio/supp13D.htm

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